Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalofstra85861922roya).pdf/450

 to a woman-neighbour of his. But on its commencing to stay in the river in front of her house, the woman's people disturbed it with sticks and fish-spears (tirok) so that the animal could not rest in peace. When it was leaving the place, the woman had a dream in which the spirit said to her, "I (awak) desired to act to your profit, but it seems you do not care to have my service. You disturbed me. Now I don't want to have anything more to do with you. If you want my friendship again yon must sacrifice one of your children to me." I do not know if any similar case occurs anywhere in the Peninsula.

To sum up such are among the alleged phenomena purported to lend support to the numerous spirit-beliefs of the Malay peasantry. An upholder of the doctrine of Transmigration of Souls may possibly be tempted to suspect some connection between this akuan-belief and the doctrine. But apart from mere suspicion, there is nothing in the popular conception of it to show that its believers have even the barest idea of that theory. The "owners" themselves never have any such idea. But that the akuan may pass down as a legacy from parents to children or from a dead husband to a surviving wife appears to be a generally accepted possibility. With the introduction of modern ideas and surroundings the belief in akuan is gradually dying out among the younger generation of Malays. But among their old-fashioned elders of the purely conservative type, whose contact with this new influence has not gone to any extent beneath the surface, the grip of the belief and other kindred superstitions is still very strongly in evidence. However, it is remarkable that in matters of this kind, investigators can hardly have much data to go upon owing to the scarcity of "actual cases." One must also allow for the Malay habit of exaggeration and their fondness for the marvellous and mysterious. The same applies to the wide-spread belief in polong, pontianak, pěnanggalan, pělĕsil, etc., etc., which is now confined only to the most superstitious. The difference between the polong, pontianak, etc., and the akuan is that the former are malignant spirits, kept for inhuman purposes, (cf. Skeat, Malay Magic, pp. 327-331) while the latter are good and serviceable auxiliaries.

The Muhammadan religion, it is true, discountenances all such belief in the powers of the devils. Any recognition of a power, other than God, as a being superior to man is repugnant to it. But ignorance is as much a power as knowledge: where it exists the impossible becomes possible. The most opposite beliefs and doctrines can subsist side by side in two water-tight compartments in any raw and uncultivated mind. And so it is with the majority of the Malays. With all these they "are among the most orthodox of Muhammadans."